News

Pervasive gains advanced database search engine

• By Rich Seeley
• July 9, 2003

Pervasive Software, Austin, Texas, this week said it has signed an agreement to license full-text search technology from Abacus Research that can provide Web search engine-style capabilities for users of the Pervasive.SQL database.

End users will be able to do advanced searches, including partial match, wild card and fuzzy logic searches, into application and Web portal data with sub-second response times for even large databases, according to officials at Pervasive (www.pervasive.com).

Rob Reinauer, Pervasive's CTO, said he was searching for technology to provide these advanced search capabilities for his company's product when he discovered that Abacus, a Swiss partner of Pervasive, had already developed one that was integrated into its implementations of Pervasive.SQL.

The Abacus technology allows developers to quickly add sophisticated search capabilities to database applications, Reinauer said.

The product will be helpful in small- and medium-sized businesses where there is little or no IT support for sophisticated database queries, said Suaad Sait, Pervasive's vice president of marketing. As an example, he said, Pervasive is working with Timberline Software Corp., which plans to add the search capabilities to the financial and operations software it markets to construction and real-estate offices.

The search technology will be flexible enough to work in traditional database applications and Web applications, added Reinauer.

"It's an XML document that's returned," he explained. "So it is certainly something that could be sent over the Web natively. What we will distribute is a standalone utility for those ISVs that don't feel the need to do a tight integration into the user interface of their application."

There will also be what he terms "a very robust API set" for ISVs wanting the search data to fit directly into their database applications. "For instance," said Reinauer, "Timberline wants it to be a Timberline look-and-feel window that pops up as part of their application."

While the Abacus technology will initially be for the Pervasive product, the company plans to expand its scope so that it will eventually work across heterogeneous databases, Sait said.